


How We Roll

by AbelQuartz



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Blushing, Comedy, Disco, F/F, Fluff, Gen, Holding Hands, Humanity, Rollerblades & Rollerskates, Romantic Fluff, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 14:44:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19320280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbelQuartz/pseuds/AbelQuartz
Summary: [COMM] It’s a new night out for all the Crystal Gems at the old entertainment facility - with an arcade, a party room, bowling, and even a roller-skating rink! Peridot wants to find a balance of fun for the evening, but she might need Amethyst’s help to keep herself on her feet.





	How We Roll

**** On the other side of the facility, Bismuth had agreed to watch Steven and Connie try and beat Greg in some candlepin bowling, learning a little herself along the way. Garnet was busying herself with the arcade and setting as many pinball records as she could to the amazement of the crowd of enthusiasts. Lapis was content from the sidelines with Peal, as the water Gem listened with vested interest to the function of this building. It was difficult to explain in the modern era, with the dark and blurry colors all over the carpet, the abundance of disco balls and spinning lights, and the massive wooden oval arena.

Upon first inspection, Peridot’s conclusion was that this was a manner of sporting arena, but without any audience to observe the event. Frankly there didn’t seem to be much of an event at all. Upon attaching wheeled footwear to their bodies, the human participants seemed to partake in encircling rituals, content to glide around the oval at speeds only marginally faster than their ambulatory average. The arena took up half the facility, maybe even more counting the so-called “grill” and tables where the humans ate.

At times like these, Peridot marginally missed her limb enhancers. It would only take a few upgrades to attach some manner of wheel to them to allow for similar feats on her feet, which she could use in any urban environment. But what was the use if propellors or simply running could get her there faster? The Gem approached the wall of the rink and pulled herself up to see over. Even after epistemological meditation on the singular usage of meep morp and acceptance of their aesthetic purpose, performance and exercise was as alien to Peridot as Peridot was alien to the Earth.

“What’re you waiting for, Peridot? Disco’s already dead, and it ain’t gonna get deader!”

Amethyst tromped up to the wall with three hot dogs balanced between both her hands in various stages of consumption. Based on the light conversation with Steven about the purpose of eating and the unforgivably heavy conversation with Amethyst about the aftermath, Peridot felt her entire body shudder at the sight of her fellow Gem consuming the flesh amalgams. For her part, Amethyst was watching the roller rink with a keen eye and a ketchup-stained smirk.

“Who is this ‘disco’ individual,” Peridot snapped, “and how did they perish?”

“No, man, the dancing! Listen to the bass,” Amethyst said, pointing to the ceiling speakers and bobbing her finger in time to the rhythm.

There were musical characteristics on which Peridot could hone in, and as the horns played over, patterns began to emerge. Distinct electronic percussion backed up the instrumentation. The minor to major tonal shifts resonated with a rhythm that Peridot swore she could recall from some point in her human exploration. Perhaps, then, this was what the humans referred to as “the funk.” As to be expected, many humans could be observed moving their heads and arms to the beat while they rolled, sometimes lifting a foot in a dangerous imbalance, a manner of personal flair that turned Peridot’s insides all wiggly. Dangerous qualities of addiction permeated the music, as if compelling the humans to dance against their will.

Even her companion was beset by this insidious “funk.” Amethyst chewed and moved her head to the beat at the same time, shifting her shoulders just enough to make her body quiver. Small motions in the head moved down to the Gem’s hips, and Peridot observed the subtle motions with an odd sort of personal intrigue. It must be possible to learn the art of human dance. Funk would never be allowed to flourish on Homeworld. The motions themselves were as hypnotizing and lascivious as the music that compelled them. Peridot’s eyes were fixed on the sway of Amethyst’s hair, looping effortlessly, as if the Gem’s entire body was a conduit for performance.

The motions slowed and stopped. Peridot observed the phenomenon for a moment before she realized that Amethyst was staring at her with a raised eyebrow. The purple gem almost blushed, snorting in laughter as she wolfed down another hot dog.

“Look, I’ll be a lot more confident on the rink,” Amethyst chuckled. “It’s been a while since we got out here. Man, they should do another derby sometime.”

“The rink - this arena, people just...go in circles on their wheeled footwear?”

“Dancing and skating, yup.”

“And what is this ‘derby’ of which you speak?” Peridot snapped. “Is that another more competitive form of going in circles?”

Amethyst flexed, and light shone around her knees, head and elbows as protective pads and a helmet appeared. Various facial piercings manifested as well, giving the Gem a frighteningly punk appearance.

“Oh, you better believe it!” she said. “Except that we got a team, and I got to kick the snot out of the other dudes, making laps, blading like a champ. But that was, like, twenty years ago - Earth years. And this place is flat. You need curves to get up speed, y’know?”

Peridot didn’t know, but she could imagine. The green Gem turned to the floor and calculated the precise angles and rise for such an event to occur. Without a knowledge of the point system or the racing strategies, the competitors in Peridot’s imagination simply skated fast and punched each other while the audience members clapped politely in their insatiable lust for bodily harm. Earth certainly was the only place where such a game could manifest.

“I know exactly what you mean,” Peridot said.

“Mmhm.”

Amethyst raised her eyebrows and ate the dog in relative silence. From what Peridot gathered about human bodies, sustained impact with a wooden floor like this would result in bruising of the skin and the possibility of osteal fracture. As she mused, a small child slipped on their own wheels and fell to the ground. A larger human glided effortlessly behind them and raised them back to their feet, where both parties slowly rolled down the laquered wood.

“What is the purpose of this...activity? I fail to see how fun is extracted from this specific process.”

“Man, it’s relaxing!” Amethyst said. “I mean when I’m in the derby it’s about blam, kapow, getting some stuff out of the system. But this is just to roll and have fun. Not everyone used to have your limb enhancers, man. They just wanna glide and chill.”

Relaxation was a concept with which Peridot was more familiar now that she had several projects and battles she had accomplished. Back at the barn, she relaxed with Lapis often by watching episodes of  _ Camp Pining Hearts _ that had been analyzed to the point of complete understanding, or by tending to the plants and vegetables on days where the larger harvesting and weeding activities were already completed. There didn’t seem to be much relaxing about having to constantly maintain balance - although that was certainly not a challenge for an accomplished Gem like herself - and many of the humans in the arena appeared to have difficulty staying upright.

The only possibility now would be to swallow whatever anxiety she could deny and get herself onto the wood. Considering that there did not appear to be so-called “skates” on any humans outside the rink or in the back of Greg’s van, getting one’s self equipped was the first of many mysteries.

“Where does one acquire the appropriate footwear?” Peridot asked.

“Uh, Khalil, next to the bowling shoe rental.”

“...oh, that’s the name of a human.”

“Yeah, c’mon! Let’s get suited up!”

“Wh- wait, waitwaIT WAIT - “

Amethyst had already taken Peridot by the wrist, wiping her mouth with the back of her wrist as her derby equipment dematerialized in a flash of light. The counter next to the bowling shoes was separated by a single bar, decorated a little more vibrantly with the disco theme as opposed to the bowling alley’s pseudo-modern kid-friendly atmosphere. The man behind the counter was fairly young in human years, with thick, square glasses and an even thicker black beard. He glanced down at the Gems as they approached, tapping some buttons on the board in front of his computer.

“Hey hey,” he said, grinning at Amethyst and Peridot. “Man, I love those - what are there, like cat’s eyes? Crazy retro.”

He tapped the side of his own glasses and pointed to Peridot. The Gem unfocused her eyes to look at the inside of her protective goggles, touching their point with one finger. The stylistic choice was somewhat for the intimidation factor, somewhat for the metaphorical symmetry to match the other three points of her hair for five total. Regardless of their removability, though, they were not borrowed eyes by any stretch of the imagination, merely a light projection like the rest of her outfit. Amethyst crossed her arms and smiled at the fact that her companion was getting some recognition for her outfit.

“They’re protective eyewear. Silica amalgam,” Peridot responded.

“...neat!”

Amethyst leaned on the counter heavily, snapping at Khalil to distract him from Peridot’s answer.

“So can we get two sets of skates for tonight? It’s gonna be on the tab of one Greg Universe. I can swing a men’s nine, wide if you got ‘em.”

“You know I got you. That man’s running up one heck of a bill.”

Khalil gave her the  _ okay _ symbol, nodding along as he made more adjustments. The music that boomed through the side of the skating arena faded out, then back in to a new song. This must be the control booth of the main funk distribution, Peridot figured. The man leaned over the counter and glanced down at Peridot’s body.

“And your friend there’s gonna be kid’s eight. Maybe,” he muttered.

He turned around and got into the back. Human gravity connectors - or, to use the native tongue,  _ feet _ \- were designed with a unique elegance and obtuse error probability, as well as a uniquely odd relationship with the rest of the body in infant development. Much of the body served no purpose as far as Peridot could tell. On the one side, they were magnificently interconnected on a microcosmic level. On the other, toes were gross.

Momentarily, Khalil came back out with two sets of skates. He couldn’t help but laugh as he handed them over the counter.

“Would you believe this is all we got for your sizes? Have fun matching out there!”

Peridot looked at the sparkly purple shoes with a mixture of apprehension and begrudging acceptance. Amethyst swung the her green-striped skates by the shoelace, giving Khalil a thumbs-up before she grabbed Peridot and dragged her over to the benches next to the rink. In front of them, there were rows and rows of holes, each occupied by a deflated pair of regular human shoes.

Looking over, the green Gem could see Amethyst open the tongue, sliding her foot inside and wriggling it to make sure it was secure. Peridot sat with one skate in her hand, rotating it to the optimal angle. The dangling ropes hung limply over the heel, like seaweed or snakeskin. Peridot eased the tongue open like there was a spider inside her skate, as wide as it could go, before attempting to push her foot into the opening. The curve near the ball stopped her short. This wasn’t how things were supposed to happen. With a growl, the Gem reached down to the sides of her shoe and pulled as tightly as she could. The effort only put pressure on her foot and started to pinch.

“Peri, pause. I think you got a - “

“The foot goes into the skate!” she snapped, shaking her entire leg. “The wheeled enhancer is attached by force of tension to the gravity connector and then we can do this dumb thing!”

“You’re trying to put the left skate on your right foot.”

In the dim light of the rink, and certainly not because she was flustered or nervous, Peridot had not noticed the subtle curvature in the shoe body. Before she could redact her annoyance and fix the error, Amethyst was already swinging around in front of her. The purple Gem knelt, and took the skate off from where Peridot was tugging. As she picked the other shoe up, she felt herself flush as she realized just what Amethyst was about to do.

“Amethyst,” she muttered, “I’m more than capable of securing this device to my person without assistance.”

“I used to help Steven with this stuff all the time, Dot. It’ll be faster if I just lace you up so we can get out there.”

Be that as it may, it was more embarrassing than Peridot could ever admit. But with the accompanying nicknames, she had to admit that this was the most focused that she had ever seen Amethyst almost ever. The rambunctious Gem was no good with machinery or Gem technology on an engineering level, but she could manhandle human devices with a certain grace that Peridot couldn’t begin to understand. It was like she had all the multifaceted neural connections of a human being, with all the potential abilities and longevity of a Gem. Peridot had thought that only humans could have that kind of patience, the kind that came at the cost of minutes shaved from a ridiculously short lifespan.

Another aspect of this interaction that Peridot had trouble grasping was the qualia of platonic touch. Amethyst finished securing one purple skate to the right foot, then picked up the left and moved Peridot’s leg to maneuver it into the opening. In any other moment, the Gem would have snapped and said that she could handle the operation herself having seen the manual and primitive example. With Amethyst, for some reason, she simply didn’t want to. Being cared for in this strange, diminutive manner was unquantifiably pleasurable. It certainly didn’t bowl her with sensory overload, but it was merely nice.

Amethyst finished knotting up the second skate, then looked up to Peridot. She raised her eyebrows, then smirked sheepishly, trying to hide her flush by standing and rolling back a bit towards the cubbies.

“Look, you’re gonna be fine once you get the hang of it,” Amethyst said. “Just come on up, test your balance, okay?”

That was no problem at all. Even without the grounding of her old limb enhancers, Peridot was confident in her relationship to the ground with or without wheels. She was an athletic, capable Gem who could balance with these skates on a balance beam while blindfolded. Peridot nodded and put her hands on the bench with her skates on the carpet. Even pushing up caused the wheels to want to squeak forwards. Peridot straightened her arms up off the bench. All eight wheels trembled as she tried to find the right place, the correct angle with which to thrust herself upwards without causing the wheels to carry her away. Cautiously, the Gem turned herself to the side, twisting her feet so that she could push off the bench from the front instead of backwards. Peridot straightened her back, and there she was, standing upright on the wheels. This wasn’t so bad after all.

“This isn’t so bad after all!”

Peridot turned to walk towards the rink. The skate rocketed back with the motion of her legs, sending her heel straight up into the air. She yelped as she stumbled forwards and sent the other skate back as well, whirling her down to smack her face straight into the ground.

“THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE,” she shouted.

Even though she was muffled by the carpet, clearly someone heard her. Peridot found herself rising, with two hands cupped underneath her arms. Amethyst lifted Peridot up and set her on her feet. The green Gem turned her face away from where Amethyst might be looking, hoping to hide the flush in her cheeks. But her companion was only smiling, keeping any derisive laughter out of her voice. After finding her balance again, Peridot glanced to the side where Amethyst had moved.

“It takes a little bit of practice,” Amethyst said, and she reached down to take Peridot by the hand. “You gotta have someone to pick you up when you fall. C’mon, you must’ve learned that by now, right?”

“W-well…”

They moved inch by reluctant inch. It was easy to tell that Amethyst was ready to go onto the dance floor ages ago, but she didn’t rush at all. Peridot let herself be pulled as she took steps on the carpet, adjusting her legs with caution. The wood of the arena looked infinitely slipperier as they approached the opening of the arena. Each human that passed by started to make Peridot dizzy as they flew around and around. The transition from the frictional carpet to the wood seemed impossible. 

But Peridot felt a small tug. Amethyst turned and stepped backwards, one green skate on the wood. She held out her other hand, and Peridot held on with confusion. Going forwards was a task in itself, and the other direction was impossible.

“Just hold on and let me pull you for the first part, so you can get used to it! And then you can push yourself off, and I’ll still be next to you.”

Peridot let out a squeak of agitation as she was pulled without a second thought onto the floor, and immediately started to go forwards. Each motion on Amethyst’s part took her in that direction as long as she turned her feet to keep from falling over. The Gem showed her prowess from her sporting past as she moved backwards, holding Peridot’s hands at arm’s length, pulling her with the same strength that could level buildings. They were moving.

She could see it now. Peridot looked around at the individuals who rolled to the beat, touching down on the bass to push themselves swiftly along the path. Other kids, other newcomers like her, stumbled along and laughed with each other as they shouted encouragements in the same brash tones that could often be attributed to Amethyst in her more uninhibited moments. More parents and smaller children skated together, holding on to the rails. And then there were the couples, the pairs of humans that held hands and skated and danced together, synchronized only in personage and unaware of the world around them. They could go next to one another without a single thought. Peridot looked at Amethyst and saw the eager smile.

“You’re doing it!” Amethyst said.

“I… I think I’m ready.”

Peridot let go with one hand. Amethyst started to release with the other, but Peridot held on, pulling Amethyst to the side. The Gem allowed it, watching as Peridot’s momentum slowed. She put one foot in front, using the side of the wheel, and pushed herself forwards. The sound of polymer on wood reached her ears with a rush as she found herself being pushed forwards. She tried the same thing with the other foot, gently, one movement at a time, and Amethyst’s smile widened as she kept up with her companion.

She was doing it. There were all the pieces together, a reason for Peridot to be here. Wherever she went, Amethyst kept up as well. The dazzling lights refracted overhead as Khalil changed the song in the booth, saturating the rink in a dance-floor atmosphere to the cheers of the patrons. Peridot couldn’t help but laugh as she moved forward, feeling weightless as the air conditioning blew through her hair. Amethyst stayed right next to her, hand in hand. The Gems squeezed tightly as they made their circles, heads bobbing and hearts beating to the same rhythms of the night. It didn’t really bother her why skating mattered to the humans around them. Peridot looked at the Amethyst, and she knew why it mattered to her.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the-cloddy-artist on Tumblr for commissioning this fluff! It was fun to write Peridot's perspective.


End file.
